Demonstrations in Indonesia

PM Archive - Friday, 21 March , 2003 18:50:00

Reporter: Tim Palmer

MARK COLVIN: In Indonesia, in contrast to the start of the Afghanistan War, the start of the Iraq war has triggered only muted demonstrations without violence or arrests. Larger rallies are planned but so far the calm has been a sign of the Government's success – with the help of moderate Muslim groups – in corralling anger on the streets.

But away from the large organisations, the war on Iraq is already bringing bitter threats from radical groups. They say Australians should leave Indonesia now, and they're considering campaigns of victimisation and kidnapping.

Indonesia Correspondent Tim Palmer.

TIM PALMER: The first stages of protest in Jakarta, have mirrored the first stages of the war. Demonstrations were faltering and uncertain of how far to push the mood of anger, but even if muted on the streets these first days, the opposition to the war is unrestrained when it comes to words.

President Megawati now describes the war as illegal under international law and an act of aggression. In the country's biggest religious groups, the language is even tougher. Sefi Marif of the Mohammedan Movement is unforgiving in his assessment of Tony Blair, George W. Bush and John Howard.

[To Marif] Tell me what you think of these three leaders?

SEFI MARIF: Not more than war criminals, war criminals! Nobody loves Saddam Hussein, but what kind of moral right do they have to kick out him from his own country? What kind of law is this, this jungle law?

TIM PALMER: Hidiyat Nurwahid's Justice Party expects to rally more than one hundred thousand people on the weekend.

HIDIYAT NURWAHID: Indonesian people understand that this is another kind of terrorism against other states. This is the problem.

TIM PALMER: That language in particular is helping to roll back whatever progress Indonesia had made after the Kuta bombing attacks towards recognising the emergence of violent extremism here. Every bomb that falls in Iraq further blurs the war on terror. Justice Party spokesman Mohammed Tunjung's view is typical.

MOHAMMED TUNJUNG: The Indonesian people, we think that this act is no different from attacking the WTC building, no different from attacking the Sari nightclub in Bali island. So this is terrorism as well, but this is even worse because it is state terrorism.

TIM PALMER: Those opinions, thought of as moderate in the spectrum of Islamic politics here, must suggest that outside of the mainstream many will see this as a war on Islam. Such a group is the Islamic Defenders Front. The group's leadership disbanded its Laskar or militia wing in the weeks after the Bali blasts, but now the militia is back with new recruits and a new mission.

The group's already told Australians and other expatriates from nations moving against Baghdad to get out of Indonesia. The Front said it will seek to make demonstrations at embassies, including Australia's, violent, and the militia leader Jafar Sideek says his groups and others are talking about even stronger reprisals.

JAFAR SIDEEK [translated]: Maybe it will go even further than that. Who knows what even harder Islamic groups will do. They might take tougher measures, sweeping and kidnapping Australian citizens and so on. We're pretty much picking up that thinking from our grass roots.

TIM PALMER: Threats to sweep cities of western expatriates have been heard before and rarely carried out, but the Islamic Defender's Front remains a noisy reminder that radical hostility lays outside the non-violent platitudes of the mainstream Muslim groups.